The present invention relates to disk drives. More particularly, the invention provides a suspension assembly having weight reduction features while maintaining sufficient stiffness, which will result in improved suspension resonance, operational shock, and flow induced windage off-track. Merely by way of example, the invention is applied to hard disk drive apparatus, but it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability.
A hard disc drive (HDD) unit generally uses a spinning storage medium (e.g., a disk or platter) to store data. A read-write head is positioned in close proximity to the spinning storage medium by a head stack assembly (HSA). Mounted on the HSA, a suspension assembly commonly includes a base plate, a load beam, and a flexure trace gimbal to which a slider is mounted. The slider supports the read-write head element. The load beam is generally composed of an actuator mounting section, a spring region and a rigid region. The spring region gives the suspension a spring force or preload counteracting the aerodynamic lift force created by the spinning medium during reading or writing. A gimbal is mounted at the distal end of the load beam and supports the slider allowing the head to have pitch and roll movement in order to follow the irregularities of the disk surface.
Demand generally requires increased HDD storage capacity, which generally compels higher track densities. Data tracks often become narrower and the spacing between data tracks on the storage medium decreases. An obstacle associated with increased track densities is accurate positioning of the read/write head over the desired track due to turbulent air streams generated by the spinning storage medium. It is therefore desirable to produce suspension assemblies with suitable stiffness and stability.
As can be seen from the above, improved techniques for a suspension assembly are needed.